Healthcare bosses aim for 'radical and revolutionary' transformation to children's mental health

Mental health support for children and young people in Greater Manchester is undergoing a complete transformation.

The new Crisis Care Pathway is aiming to put the needs of young people and their families at the heart of support.

The scheme has been in development for almost three years now, with doctors, consultants and psychologists working to develop a complete change of services.

As part of the new scheme, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust are recruiting for four teams of Rapid Response groups.

Mental health nurses, social workers and support staff will working in partnership to respond to a child in crisis any time of the day or night.

The 24/7 teams will work with parents and families to offer support to a young person.

Krissie Ivings is one of the Consultant Clinical Psychologists working on the scheme:

"We had the opportunity to build services from the ground up. Normally you have to change them from within and are only able to focus on one thing.

"This time though, we were saying, it's not working for young people or families, or hospitals, staff, education. We started with a blank piece of paper that said we could do whatever. So we took that challenge and we've completely changed things."

As part of the development process, the team asked children and families what they wanted to see change.

Krissie said:

"We focused on the fact that we've got a young person in crisis, what do they need and what do they want? We came up with seven pledges. None of it was rocket science, they wanted to be seen quickly and know where to go. They're not in that place at the moment."

As well as the Rapid Response teams, there will be an additional crisis beds in hospitals, for young people in serious need.

There will also be additional support on offer for families, once a child has been discharged from A&E.

The Rapid Response teams will begin to be rolled out from the start of May.

Krissie said it was the most exciting development she has ever worked on:

"The aim is not to save money. There is a huge amount of unmet need in children's mental health services. By casting out a wider net we're going to be able to find a lot of need that has been hidden.

"It's radical and it's revolutionary. It shouldn't be, but it is. I've never seen this much collaboration in 20 years with the NHS.

"Children's mental health is everybody's business. We're all coming together to say that at the heart of it there is a young person in crisis, what do they need? Whoever is best place to help them - do it."